Monday
“’Grim’ September ahead with 6,000 steel and oil jobs to go” said the BBC headline. The report went on to discuss the likelihood that 2,800 jobs were set to be lost at Port Talbot in Wales, up to 3,000 jobs were in jeopardy at British Steel in Scunthorpe, and a further 400 would be cut at the oil refinery at Grangemouth in Scotland. Never let it be said that the pain of net zero isn’t being borne across the entire country.
Tuesday
A vote was held in the House of Commons with regard to the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024. In other words, MPs were voting on whether or not to withdraw from most old age pensioners in the UK the annual payment of £200 or £300 made to them in winter to help them pay their ever-rising fuel bills. Needless to say MPS voted by 348 to 228 to take the money off the old people. What ought to be more surprising (but, sadly, isn’t) is that the vast majority of the 348 MPs voting to take the money off pensioners (many, but not all, of whom are relatively poor) were Labour Party MPs.
Wednesday
The appalling news from south Wales was confirmed as the Government boasted about wasting half a billion pounds of UK taxpayers’ money in order to bring to an end 2,500 jobs imminently, with a further 300 job losses down the line. “UK government confirms £500m Tata Steel subsidy” said the BBC headline The new Labour Business and Trade Secretary said this brought “hope”.
Thursday
Another day, another depressing headline: “Scotland’s only oil refinery is to close by the summer of next year, with the loss of 400 jobs.”
Friday
Today’s first headline hadn’t been touted by the BBC at the beginning of the week, but why not finish the week as it started? This is, after all, Britain under a Labour Government that doesn’t seem to understand the “labour” part of its name. “Boiler maker Worcester Bosch considering job cuts” is the depressing conclusion to the “working” week. We aren’t told how many jobs are, regrettably, at risk, but we do learn (not that it’s a surprise) that the “move towards electrification” is among the factors leading to the business review that seems certain to result in job losses.
It’s not the only headline today, though. The other one of significance relates to west Cumbria, a depressed area of the country with high rates of unemployment. This time it isn’t job losses that are the problem, rather it’s the determination of some people to ensure that poor people can’t have work. “Coal mine plan quashed by High Court” we learn. I don’t blame the Judge, who had no choice other than to follow the ruling of the Supreme Court in R (on the application of Finch on behalf of the Weald Action Group) v Surrey County Council and others. However, I do blame the recently elected Labour government, which is already making a habit of deciding not to defend its predecessor’s decisions when they are challenged in Court by lawfare groups. So that’s another 500 direct jobs and potentially many more in the supply chain that won’t now be created.
Net zero is the policy that underlies many of these headlines. It’s raising fuel bills, it’s enabling foreign companies to hoover up subsidies, it’s impoverishing people, it’s destroying jobs, it’s damaging the UK’s manufacturing base, it’s devastating the UK’s wild places, it’s threatening our energy and food security, and it’s achieving absolutely nothing vis-a-vis the climate. And a Labour government is accelerating the process as we hurtle towards the cliff. If a week is a long time in politics, I shudder to think what five years will be like.
Climate Scepticism 
Very well said Mark – your concluding paragraph is outstanding.
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You could have included in that final paragraph, Mark . . . . “it’s threatening our energy and food security”. Just for completeness. Net Zero is aptly named: the UK will be left with bugger all worth having. And the week ended with Friday 13th. How very apt too.
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Robin, thank you for your kind words; and Jaime, thank you for the suggestion – I have incorporated your additional words in the final paragraph.
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As also mentioned by Mark a few days ago, there was the story this week of the 160 jobs under threat at Alexander Dennis.
The BBC version of the story has an interesting quote.
Well, when your buses cost half a mil apiece, it’s likely that the order book is going to dry up, even when councils up and down the land have stupidly proclaimed a “climate emergency.” With large grants on offer, the bus operators can afford to virtue signal for a while at least, with the promise of lower maintenance costs over diesels. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that bus companies are themselves finding life in once-Great Britain rather trying.
Regarding the mine, I think it is disgraceful that people are willing to engage in lawfare to stop something which is none of their damn business.
But ultimately, there is no-one to blame but ourselves.
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Hi Mark
“Boiler maker Worcester Bosch considering job cuts”
Equally true, “Heat pump maker Worcester Bosch considering job cuts”
https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/heat-pumps
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Joe, that’s a fair point, though the company did blame electrification for its woes in part. After all, people have to heat their homes, whether with gas boilers or with heat pumps. And with ever more homes in the UK, one would expect overall demand to be increasing.
What, then, lies behind this story? Expensive UK energy making them uncompetitive against cheap Chinese imports? I don’t know, though it wouldn’t surprise me.
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MH – “What, then, lies behind this story?”
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that with the continued propaganda and hype pushing for heat pumps, the largest by-far market for them is the 20m homes with gas boilers. However, now when their boiler approaches the end of its useful life, many decision-makers are unsure (scared) to replace it with a HP because of the undoubted high cost, and their poor reputation for replicating the comfort conditions provided by their boiler. Likewise, they suspect cost/performance of HPs to ‘improve’. Consequently, they buy neither a new boiler nor a HP, but “spares & bodges” to extend the life of their boiler.
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…Governments in the UK and across Europe face a mighty industrial battle over the coming years to push through net zero policies, in the teeth of trade union and popular resistance which is certain to grow.
With each high-profile plant closure, the intensity of that fight ratchets up.
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Mark,
Liam Halligan at the Telegraphs fails to see the contradiction in his own article:
Scotland’s last remaining oil refinery – Grangemouth – is to shut, we learned last week, with the loss of 400 jobs.
If the ban on petrol and diesel cars doesn’t happen then the closure of Grangemouth and the loss of 400 jobs will have been unnecessary. In reality, Grangemouth is closing because the oil which it refines, delivered direct from the North Sea via a pipeline, will no longer be available, because North Sea oil production is being shut down, and it makes no sense to import oil from abroad to be refined at Grangemouth.
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Wrt the Grangemouth closure, I’ve read that it is the oldest refinery in the UK and costs a fortune in maintenance and repairs.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the oil – and gas, iirc – which arrive there by pipeline. While that production is in decline, there’s no reason for it to be shutdown prematurely. The rest of the petrochem plants will continue to run so I guess the feedstock will be imported.
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We now hear that Harland & Wolff are entering administration, and that VW will have to shed 15,000 jobs to survive. It’s going well this week too!
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“Traditional steelmaking ends in Port Talbot”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70zxjldqnxo
The last remaining blast furnace in Port Talbot will stop producing steel on Monday, ending the traditional method of steelmaking in south Wales.
Tata Steel is expected to remove the last usable liquid iron from blast furnace 4 on Monday afternoon.
The closure of the heavy end at the UK’s largest steelworks is part of a restructure that will cut 2,800 jobs.
Future steelmaking in Port Talbot will rely on imports until an electric furnace, which melts scrap steel, is built.
This is, quite simply, insane.
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On the same day our last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar closes down, so politicians and the media can boast about being the first major economy not to rely upon (domestically burned) coal.
Insanity squared = industrial and economic sabotage
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Indeed, Jaime:
“End of an era as Britain’s last coal-fired power plant shuts down
UK’s 142-year history of coal-fired electricity ends as turbines at Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant in Nottinghamshire stop for good”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/30/end-of-an-era-as-britains-last-coal-fired-power-plant-shuts-down
Britain’s only remaining coal power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire will generate electricity for the last time on Monday after powering the UK for 57 years.
The power plant will come to the end of its life in line with the government’s world-leading policy to phase out coal power which was first signalled almost a decade ago.
The closure marks the end of Britain’s 142-year history of coal power use which began when the world’s first coal-fired power station, the Holborn Viaduct power station, began generating electricity in 1882.
The shutdown has been hailed by green campaigners as a major achievement for the government in reducing the UK’s carbon emissions, providing international climate leadership, and ensuring a “just transition” for staff in Britain’s coal industry....
…The UK became the first country to set an end date for coal power from 2025 after putting in place increasingly stringent green regulations to reduce the running hours of its coal plants.…
It’s wonderful to be a world leader – just look at how China and India have fallen into line behind us…..And just transitions are marvellous too:
…The coal plant once employed 3,000 engineers but its workforce has declined in line with its power output over recent years. Coal power made up 80% of the UK’s electricity in the early 1980s, and 40% in 2012, before petering out in the last decade due to costly carbon taxes and the rise of cheaper renewables….
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“‘It’s heartbreaking’: gloom in Port Talbot as steel town’s last blast furnace closes”
As workers finish their final shift, local people lament the end of an era and fear devastating impact in south Wales”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/sep/30/heartbreaking-gloom-port-talbot-steel-town-last-blast-furnace-closes
...It is hard to overstate the impact of the closure of the blast furnace on the town’s largest private employer. After years of heavy losses its Indian owner, Tata, shut blast furnace 5 in July, and eventually announced the last furnace would close at the end of September. An estimated 1,900 jobs will be lost in the coming months.
But unions say that for every job that goes in the steel plant, about three or four jobs are supported in the wider community, which will be hard hit by the heavy losses....
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